Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, has been elected for a sixth term following Saturday’s local government election in New South Wales.
Unlike Western Australia where there are no political parties in local government elections, in New South Wales it’s a partisan system. Moore is an independent and not aligned to a party.
Moore was first elected as Lord Mayor in 2004, and she is the longest serving mayor since the city was first incorporated in 1842. This time round the 78-year-old politician says it may be her last term.
Moore was also a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 188 until 2012 representing the electorates of Bligh and then later Sydney. She resigned from parliament when new laws were brought in to stop someone from serving in both local and state government at the same time, the media dubbed the laws the “Get Clover’ legislation.
This time round the long-standing Lord Mayor faced a campaign using the slogan ‘We’re Over Clover’ to try an unseat her. She’s described the approach as “post-Trumpian”.
“It was a pretty tough campaign, and some pretty awful things were said.” Moore noted as she celebrated her victory.
Moore has been criticized for not doing enough to revitalize the city’s nightlife, especially the gay neighbourhood of Oxford Street. Additionally, detractors have questioned the council’s focus on building bike lanes and reducing carbon emissions.
Sean Master from the Libertarian Party had garnered significant attention from conservative media with his campaign against Moore where he said he was running to stop an obsession with identity politics.
“As far as I’m concerned, we’re living through a historical moment in history where every single one of our institutions is being simultaneously attacked by all sides for a range of dangerous and divisive ideologies that this mayor and this council have entirely taken the knee to.” Masters told 2GB’s Ben Fordham.
In the initial count Masters attracted 3.68% of the vote to Moore’s 36.84% of the vote. Four other mayoral candidates attracted a higher portion of the vote.
While Moore has re-elected for another term it is expected her independent team will only hold three of the nine seats on council, down from six.
